D.C. ruling's impact unclear for Illinois' gun laws

A U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the District of Columbia’s handgun ban won’t have a direct, immediate effect on existing gun-control laws in Illinois, according to legal experts.

Doug Finke

A U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the District of Columbia’s handgun ban won’t have a direct, immediate effect on existing gun-control laws in Illinois, according to legal experts.

But the high court’s ruling could affect what happens here in the future when state and local officials grapple with restrictions on guns.

“When you see the gnashing of teeth by the anti-gun types, there’s a good reason for that,” said Todd Vandermyde, an Illinois lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. “I think (Thursday’s decision) throws a hurdle in front of the other side to get past the Supreme Court.”

Thom Mannard of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence disagreed.

“You are certainly going to hear that Illinois shouldn’t move forward with certain regulations,” Mannard said. “That would be because people are going to throw this out there as a reason not to do so. It should have no effect on the ability to move forward with regulations that they believe could reduce gun-related crime.”

The problem is that no one is quite sure how the decision is going to play out.

The court ruled on the handgun ban in effect in the District of Columbia, which is under federal control. Although the court would likely rule the same on bans in effect in Chicago and San Francisco, it would take additional lawsuits to resolve that, said John McGinnis of Northwestern University’s law school.

“This is a federal case, not a state or local case,” McGinnis said. “The question is whether or not this right is incorporated against the states. I think there will be a lot of litigation on that.”

Unless the makeup of the court changes, McGinnis added, the outcome would probably be the same.

“There’s going to be a lot of rethinking of state and local gun-control laws and ordinances,” predicted Lawrence Solum of the University of Illinois School of Law. “One thing that seems likely is that some of the more extreme ordinances like Chicago and San Francisco may well be modified without litigation. They may come up with a less-restrictive version that they could successfully defend.”

One Illinois law that seems safe is the Firearm Owners Identification Act.

Solum noted that Justice Antonin Scalia specifically said the D.C. ruling should not be construed to say that the mentally ill or convicted felons should be allowed to own guns.

“FOID is really just a mechanism for enforcing that kind of ownership restriction,” Solum said. “FOID does not prevent people from owning guns.”

“If you take an extreme view, somebody might be filing a lawsuit on behalf of convicted murderers saying they should be able to own guns,” Mannard said. “I think you would have a hard time making a strong legal case that the FOID card impairs your ability to own guns.”

Vandermyde, though, said a potential legal challenge could arise if the state decided to drastically raise the $10 price of a FOID card.

“I think a $500 fee would be invalid,” he said.

Vandermyde also said he thinks Thursday’s ruling will make some gun-control proposals more difficult to pass in Illinois, including a ban on assault weapons, restricting gun purchases to one a month and a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines. Most of those ideas have gone before lawmakers in previous years and never been approved.

Rep. Harry Osterman, a Chicago Democrat and a gun-control advocate, said he isn’t entirely sure how the decision will affect laws proposed in Springfield.

“There’s a lot of issues out there that we argued for before, and we will continue to have those debates,” he said. “We’ll have to take a closer look at this as we move forward on common-sense gun control.”

Osterman did predict that the court ruling could make gun control a higher-profile issue in the November election.

“We cannot rely on the federal government on these issues, and now the Supreme Court is tying the hands of municipalities,” Osterman said. “Once and for all this will clearly put the issue at the state level for the state to decide.”

Doug Finke can be reached at (217) 788-1527 or doug.finke@sj-r.com.

FOID

Illinois requires that people obtain a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card before they can legally purchase or possess a gun or ammunition. The cards cost $10 and are issued by the Illinois State Police.

The application form includes a series of yes/no questions, including if the applicant has ever been convicted of a felony, is addicted to narcotics, is mentally retarded, is subject to an order of protection that prohibits owning a firearm, and if he or she has ever been convicted of domestic battery. A “yes” to any of those can result in denial of a card.

State police conduct criminal-background checks on FOID applicants and can verify the mental health information with the Department of Human Services or mental health facilities.

Persons who lie on the FOID application forms can be subject to perjury charges.